Emby really slow with smb server

[Beenzino 2]

Hi Emby team/community.

So my setup is a seagate 4T hard drive connected to an ASUS AX86U router and enable smb file sharing, having Emby read the media there.

I’ve managed to get a few movies on the hard drive to test it out. But Emby plays incredibly slow on both my tv and my Mac, and I couldn’t figure out why.

I then thought maybe it’s not Emby’s issue but that a router smb server just could not handle it? So I tested this by connecting to the smb server directly through my laptop and pc, and playing the movie there; it worked perfectly and was super fast. Any idea what might I be doing wrong with setting up Emby?

 

(My Emby server is set up on my MacBook, server log attached)

Thanks.

embyserver.txt

[Beenzino 2]

Just downloaded kodi and gave it a shot, media played fast and smooth. So there's definitely an issue with my Emby settings, hoping to fix it as I prefer Emby over others.

[love768952693 0]

The EMBY client plays movies and responds very slowly.

Problem status:
When using the web client to play movies, the speed is very fast, and you can view it in the ds918 emby server. At this time, a hard solution is used, but as long as you use the client to play movies, after you click play, the entire interface is loading and spinning. Wait for 30 seconds to 1 minute. When the movie is loaded, the playback process is fine, but as long as you drag the progress bar, it will be very slow.

environment:
emby is built by 2 Synology devices, DS918 is responsible for hardware decoding, and DS1821 is responsible for video storage.

• Server: DS918
• smb: DS1821

emby version:

• synology7_4.7.11.0_x86_64.spk
• synology7_4.8.0.21_(BETA)x86_64.spk

Try device:

• Android phone
• iphone13promax
• macbookpro
• winpc

Web environment:

• Server
  • wired environment - 10 Gigabit switch
• Client
  • A: PCwin wired environment - 10 Gigabit switch
  •  B: Android phone, iphone13promax, macbookpro - AP7060dn (try to replace xiaomi AX6000)

self-diagnosis:
Is the file transfer between servers caused by smb affected by the protocol? (verified not)
Since the DS1821 uses smb to mount to the DS918 for playback, it is suspected that the slow reading and writing is caused by the SMB mode, so the DS1821 file is copied using SMB in the DS918, and the reading and writing speed is almost 90MB/s-100MB/s It's full speed.

EMBY Synology suite problem?
In fact, when I first started using emby, the playback speed of the client was very fast. There was no such problem, and I can’t remember when it started. I also tried to change to different emby versions. The problem Still, not resolved.

In the end, my conclusion is that it is estimated that there is any bug in the EMBY Synology suite.

After searching, I saw that other people in the forum also had the same problem, so I also reported the problem myself. I thank the emby team for the convenience brought to me by the products, and hope that emby can serve more people.

 

[Abobader 3307]

Hello love768952693,

** This is an auto reply **

Please wait for someone from staff support or our members to reply to you.

It's recommended to provide more info, as it explain in this thread:

Thank you.

Emby Team

[Beenzino 2]

*Update

So for further testing purposes, I downloaded Infuse, and connected it to both my Emby server, and directly to the smb server. 

Results: Playing on infuse via Emby is still slow and buffers for 5-10 seconds for every 2 second played. Playing the same video on infuse via just connecting to the smb worked fine and was fast.

So I think I can conclude that the issue is at my settings on Emby. (Attached updated server log from more testing on Emby just then).

Would greatly appreciate some assistance, thanks.

@Luke

embyservernew.txt

[love768952693 0]

I also have the same problem, and it has troubled me for a long time. Synology DS918 provides EMBY server, and CIFS mounts DS1821 movies. After clicking to play, whether it is iphone, macbookpro, or win, the client does not need hard decoding to play movies, but the speed will be reversed. Very slow, you need to wait for 3-5 minutes.

In addition, the speed of emb loading movie information, including LAN login, is still very fast, but there is this problem when the movie is playing.

Edited February 2, 2023 by love768952693

[visproduction 250]

Guessing here:

1. Kodi has UDP protocol.  I cannot see if it always runs on that.
2. Emby uses TCP.
3. smp has server requirements, uses SMB Direct, SMB Transparent Failover, and important security features including AES encryption. 

I am sure someone here, knows exactly what is going on.  To me, it looks like there is a lot in smp that can get in the way of TCP packet streaming.

[love768952693 0]

9 minutes ago, visproduction said:

Guessing here:

1. Kodi has UDP protocol.  I cannot see if it always runs on that.
2. Emby uses TCP.
3. smp has server requirements, uses SMB Direct, SMB Transparent Failover, and important security features including AES encryption. 

I am sure someone here, knows exactly what is going on.  To me, it looks like there is a lot in smp that can get in the way of TCP packet streaming.

Thanks for playing, the new Batman on the 1st floor also seems to be playing very slowly.
In fact, I feel that it should be a bug of emby. In my group environment, after updating a certain version of the suite, this problem occurred. In the past, the LAN playback was very fast, because the client-side playback did not require transcoding, but instead Can degrade machine performance.

I am the official client of emby, mobile terminal, TV version, all have this problem.

[Beenzino 2]

11 minutes ago, visproduction said:

Guessing here:

1. Kodi has UDP protocol.  I cannot see if it always runs on that.
2. Emby uses TCP.
3. smp has server requirements, uses SMB Direct, SMB Transparent Failover, and important security features including AES encryption. 

I am sure someone here, knows exactly what is going on.  To me, it looks like there is a lot in smp that can get in the way of TCP packet streaming.

Thanks for the response.

Sorry for the rookie question, but any idea what protocol Infuse uses? If Infuse uses UDP as well then your hypothesis might be true (Which would be heartbreaking since I bought a new router and a hard drive for emby)

[love768952693 0]

5 minutes ago, Beenzino said:

Thanks for the response.

Sorry for the rookie question, but any idea what protocol Infuse uses? If Infuse uses UDP as well then your hypothesis might be true (Which would be heartbreaking since I bought a new router and a hard drive for emby)

Bro, look at your video title, I think we are from a country.
I read your log, just searched the problems encountered by other users in the forum, I can be sure that it is a bug of emby.

I just solved the problem, here is the solution for you.

Directly download the official suite from Synology, emby version 4.7.8.0, do not manually update the official new version, you will find that it will be solved soon, and the familiar feeling will return.

 

兄弟，看你的影片名称，我想我们来自一个国家。
我看你的日志，刚搜索了论坛其它用户遇到的问题，可以肯定就是emby的bug了。

我刚问题解决了，给你解决方案。

直接群晖下载官方套件，emby 版本 4.7.8.0，不要去手动更新官方的新版本，你会发现很快解决了，熟悉的感觉又回来了。 

[Luke 39645]

HI, I noticed you added smb paths directly to Emby Server. You might see better performance by first mounting them to macOS finder as local paths, and then adding those local paths into Emby Server instead.

[love768952693 0]

11 minutes ago, Beenzino said:

Thanks for the response.

Sorry for the rookie question, but any idea what protocol Infuse uses? If Infuse uses UDP as well then your hypothesis might be true (Which would be heartbreaking since I bought a new router and a hard drive for emby)

还有你可以参考下，这个人的帖子，他是4.6.7.0 的版本。

Also, you can refer to this person's post, he is the 4.6.7.0 version.

 

 

[Beenzino 2]

Just now, love768952693 said:

Bro, look at your video title, I think we are from a country.
I read your log, just searched the problems encountered by other users in the forum, I can be sure that it is a bug of emby.

I just solved the problem, here is the solution for you.

Directly download the official suite from Synology, emby version 4.7.8.0, do not manually update the official new version, you will find that it will be solved soon, and the familiar feeling will return.

 

兄弟，看你的影片名称，我想我们来自一个国家。
我看你的日志，刚搜索了论坛其它用户遇到的问题，可以肯定就是emby的bug了。

我刚问题解决了，给你解决方案。

直接群晖下载官方套件，emby 版本 4.7.8.0，不要去手动更新官方的新版本，你会发现很快解决了，熟悉的感觉又回来了。 

哈哈哈哈巧了。原来是bug嘛（话说官方的人怎么不回复）。

很感谢你的分享，不过我用的不是群晖诶 所以也没装Emby套件，当时觉得按我的需求nas没必要，就买了个硬盘插路由器上然后开smb分享了。

还是很感谢你的帮助，这要是解决不了就只能考虑买nas了。

Lol what a coincidence. Thanks for sharing, though unfortunately I am not using Synology. I thought a NAS might not be worth the investment for my needs so I just bought a hard drive and plugged it into my router and enabled smb sharing. 

Thanks again though, really hope I can fix this, so I don't need to buy another NAS.

[Beenzino 2]

1 minute ago, love768952693 said:

还有你可以参考下，这个人的帖子，他是4.6.7.0 的版本。

Also, you can refer to this person's post, he is the 4.6.7.0 version.

 

 

好！ 我看看 谢谢

I'll check it out, thanks!

[love768952693 0]

4 minutes ago, Luke said:

HI, I noticed you added smb paths directly to Emby Server. You might see better performance by first mounting them to macOS finder as local paths, and then adding those local paths into Emby Server instead.

I didn’t directly add the smb path, but now Synology creates a blank folder and adds it through smb mount. The smb cifs and emby fill in the path after the local Synology blank folder is mounted. I also have the same problem. Suggestions The emby team attaches great importance to this issue, which seriously affects new users' perception of emby and product reputation.

An address like this: /volume1/DS1821/Movies/

 

[love768952693 0]

3 minutes ago, Beenzino said:

好！ 我看看 谢谢

I'll check it out, thanks!

人家回复了，这个问题你搜下，好多人都有，不知道是影片名称导致的bug，还是他们更新了啥，你换版本后，记得重新扫描下媒体库，等扫描完成后，然后测试下，之前这个问题困难我好久了，我自己都不记得是什么时候出现的这个问题，然后一直就将就用。

[Beenzino 2]

5 minutes ago, Luke said:

HI, I noticed you added smb paths directly to Emby Server. You might see better performance by first mounting them to macOS finder as local paths, and then adding those local paths into Emby Server instead.

Hi Luke!

Thanks for your reply.

I went searching and followed this guide: https://www.qnap.com/en/how-to/faq/article/how-to-automount-samba-share-after-macos-reboots. Is this what you meant?

I found this as well: https://gist.github.com/natritmeyer/6621231.

Thank you!

[Luke 39645]

3 minutes ago, Beenzino said:

Hi Luke!

Thanks for your reply.

I went searching and followed this guide: https://www.qnap.com/en/how-to/faq/article/how-to-automount-samba-share-after-macos-reboots. Is this what you meant?

I found this as well: https://gist.github.com/natritmeyer/6621231.

Thank you!

Yes exactly.

[Beenzino 2]

10 minutes ago, Luke said:

Yes exactly.

I ran into an issue:

So according to the tutorial what I enter into terminal should be something like this:

mount_smbfs //username:password@server.name/share_name share_name/

But because in order for Emby to access the folder it has to be shared to everyone. So I didn't know what to put for username and password. Did some researching and apparently it doesnt work?:

https://superuser.com/questions/997735/how-to-mount-smb-share-that-can-be-accessed-by-anyone-on-mac-os-x-el-capitan

[Beenzino 2]

25 minutes ago, Beenzino said:

I ran into an issue:

So according to the tutorial what I enter into terminal should be something like this:

mount_smbfs //username:password@server.name/share_name share_name/

But because in order for Emby to access the folder it has to be shared to everyone. So I didn't know what to put for username and password. Did some researching and apparently it doesnt work?:

https://superuser.com/questions/997735/how-to-mount-smb-share-that-can-be-accessed-by-anyone-on-mac-os-x-el-capitan

*Update

I found this and followed it: https://apple.stackexchange.com/questions/10842/connect-to-server-as-guest-from-command-line

So what I enter looks something like this 

mount -N smbfs //guest@smb://myserver/Folder1/Movies Macintoch HD/Users/Me/FolderX/FolderY

But it just gives me this:

mount: illegal option -- N
usage: mount [-dfrkuvw] [-o options] [-t external_type] special mount_point
       mount [-adfrkuvw] [-t external_type]
       mount [-dfrkuvw] special | mount_point

@Luke

[Beenzino 2]

4 minutes ago, Beenzino said:

mount: illegal option -- N

If I take the -N out and input this:

mount_smbfs -N //guest@smb://myserver/FolderA/Movies Macintoch HD/Users/Me/FolderX/FolderY

I get this:

usage: mount_smbfs [-N] [-o options] [-d mode] [-f mode] [-h] [-s] [-v] [-t "@GMT token"] 
                   //[domain;][user[:password]@]server[/share] path

@Luke

[Beenzino 2]

***FInal Update - Fixed

Like Luke said:

1 hour ago, Luke said:

You might see better performance by first mounting them to macOS finder as local paths, and then adding those local paths into Emby Server instead.

I spent the past hour trying to figure out how to do that, with all those terminal commands that won't work.

Turns out, when i connected to my smb server on my mac via command K. It automatically created a local path under /Volumes/. I found it while trying to figure out other ways.

Added that path into Emby Server, got the speed I was looking for.

Two days wasted for such a simple fix...

 

Thanks to all that helped though